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Sunday, March 15, 2009

Rock On!

I’ve wanted to play the guitar for a long time now. My sweet husband bought me an acoustic as a birthday gift before we were married. Unfortunately, I get frustrated easily and never played around with it for too long before setting it down. My husband has gone through periods of fooling around with the guitar too, but hasn’t stuck with it. I guess we have short attention spans.

Thank goodness for long winters. We are finally learning a few things on the guitar. Well, I’m learning a few things. My husband is learning a whole lot of things. He plays while he sits at the computer and trades stocks every day. He plays in the afternoon. He plays in the evening. Me, not so much. I play when the kids give me a bit of a break and I don’t feel like writing, which was like, um, never.

And since I was playing never, my husband decided I needed a guitar that was more my size. He got one from his dad, who happens to be quite a musician and has lots of guitars laying around. He gave us a 1956 Fender Music Master. Doesn’t that sound official? Well, it was officially thrashed.

It happens that my husband is a do-it-yourself sort of guy. After playing on that ugly guitar for a few days he decided to do something about it. And viola! A beautiful “new” guitar. Isn’t he good? Now we just need to find a cover for where the strings connect at the bottom of the guitar. Yeah, I’m sure there’s a better way to explain that, but I’m too lazy figure it out.

This guitar is a ¾ size and it’s quite a bit easier for me to hold down the strings. I’ve actually been practicing, a little. If I could just remember where the fingers go for the chords and what they’re called. Sheesh! I am able to pick out single notes, by ear a lot of the time, so at least I can do something. One song at a time, I guess.

We’re teaching ourselves, which is a challenge in itself since we know nothing. But it’s fun. The kids are digging it too and are learning here and there. There are lots of good sites online that give guitar lessons (we like Guitar Noise ) plus we are able to find the songs we’re trying to play and listen to them online, which is cool. Maybe this time I’ll actually learn to play an entire song.